Comparison of classroom furniture to anthropometric measures of Turkish middle school students

BACKGROUND: The match between classroom furniture and students' anthropometry is an important factor in students' academic performance. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to investigate the ergonomic suitability of the classroom furniture to the students, and to propose design suggestions for both desks and chairs. METHODS: We analyzed the ergonomics of classroom furniture that students aged 10-14 years old in Turkey currently use. To this end, we selected Maltepe Primary Education School, one of the largest schools in the cankaya district of Turkey's capital city, Ankara, in which to conduct the study. A sample of 119 students was selected, and seven anthropometric measurements were taken for each of these students. We then calculated five relationships between the dimensions of the furniture and the students' anthropometric measures. RESULTS: We observed high levels of mismatch rates, with an average of 66.6% and high values of over 95% for the relations of two furniture measures, seat depth (related with buttock-popliteal length) and seat-to-desk height (related with elbow height, sitting). Each anthropometric measure was applied a fit probability distribution, and based on those distributions; we suggested the most appropriate classroom furniture dimensions in order to maximize suitability of the furniture to the anthropometric measures in terms of fixed-size (i.e., non-adjustable) classroom furniture. CONCLUSIONS: High mismatch rates can be reduced by 52.0% on average based on the classroom furniture dimensions suggested in this study.